Breaking the mould of UK judiciary

If there is a palpable air of anticipation in Dunedin legal circles this week, it is because of the arrival of a star in the judicial firmament.

Brenda Hale.
Brenda Hale.
Brenda Hale, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom - more formally "Baroness Hale of Richmond" - and that country's most senior female judge, will deliver two public lectures in the city: the F.W. Guest Memorial Lecture and the annual Ethel Benjamin Commemorative Address.

"She was the first woman to be appointed as a Lord of Appeal to the House of Lords and in that respect she is certainly a trailblazer," says Prof Mark Henaghan, Dean of the University of Otago law school, through whose academic offices, and considerable sway, the visit has been arranged.

But Baroness Hale also has a number of other "firsts" to her name.

Born in Yorkshire in 1945 to teacher parents, she studied law at Girton College, Cambridge, and, as top of her class, came away with a "starred" first class honours degree.

In 1966 after graduation, she joined the Manchester University law faculty as a junior lecturer and, while teaching, studied for the bar exams, again achieving top honours for her year.

Initially, she practised part-time as a barrister while lecturing but eventually had to choose and spent the next 18 years or so in academia.

In 1984, she became the first woman and youngest person appointed to the United Kingdom Law Commission - to which she remained attached for nine years overseeing important reforms in family law - and two years later, in an overlapping role, Professor of Law at Manchester.

In the same year she co-wrote with a fellow academic and published Women and the Law, regarded as a seminal work on women's rights at work, in the family and in the State, which concluded: "Deep-rooted problems of inequality persist and the law continues to reflect the economic, social and political dominance of men."

In 1989, she was made a Queen's Counsel and appointed a part-time circuit judge before becoming a judge in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice in 1994 and, according to convention, a Dame Commander of the British Empire.

In 1999, she was appointed to the Court of Appeal and in 2004 she became the first female Law Lord ("Lord of Appeal in Ordinary") and was created a life peer as Baroness Hale of Richmond, transferring to the Supreme Court last year, when it superceded the Law Lords.

It is implausible, of course, that in achieving all this in such a traditional bastion of the British Establishment, Baroness Hale's progress, and her influence, has gone unnoticed.

According to a profile published by UK newspaper the Guardian on her ascension to the Law Lords in 2004, she had by then become a "totemic hate figure" for the conservative Daily Mail.

On the announcement of her appointment, it called her a "hard-line feminist" whose "appointment epitomises the moral vacuum within our judiciary and wider establishment", a verdict which the article balanced with comment from friend and Labour peer Helena Kennedy QC.

"Brenda is an absolutely straightforward, completely honest and principled person," she said. "This idea of a man-hating feminist is wrong. She's extraordinarily human, by no means anti-male and great fun."

For her part, the Guardian reported, she was judicious about being elevated to such company.

"Male judges," she said, were "very welcoming, very friendly, lovely people to work with. The only comment one would make is that they tend to be of an age and background where they have rarely had a woman as an equal colleague, as opposed to a secretary, clerk or whatever. So they are sometimes nonplussed."

As Prof Henaghan points out, Baroness Hale's "unusual pedigree - which is also her strength" sets her apart from her colleagues, too.

"She's a very well-versed judge, widely read, has an incredibly sharp mind and because she has worked in a number of different areas and practised law in different courts and worked in social welfare and the law, she's got a good feel for how people operate.

"It is not common for such high-level judges to come out of these areas. They tend to come more from the commercial and civil jurisdictions ..."

In Dunedin this week, Baroness Hale's F. W. Guest lecture (Prof Frank Guest was the first full-time professor and dean of the Otago law faculty) will focus on a case relating to the ability to sue a local authority for "lack of care".

She will follow that up with a lecture to law students on the "voice of the child" in family court proceedings.

Says Prof Henaghan: "It is a great coup for us that the senior female judge in the United Kingdom would want to come to the southernmost law faculty in the world to deliver these lectures."

Baroness Hale then gives the Ethel Benjamin address on the "concept of dignity".

Ethel Benjamin was New Zealand's first woman lawyer.

She attended Otago Girls' High School from 1883 to 1892. In 1893, she enrolled for an LLB degree at the University of Otago.

She graduated in July 1897 and in September that year, when she represented a client in the recovery of debt in the Dunedin court, it was said to be the first time a female lawyer had appeared as counsel in any case in the British Empire.

Responsible for her own body of "firsts", she made it possible for women to enter and practise in the New Zealand legal profession.

Baroness Hale follows in a line of illustrious speakers in this annual event, hosted by the Otago Women Lawyers' Society (Owls).

Taryn Gudmanz, Owls convener, and associate at Gallaway Cook Allan lawyers, says her appearance is a privilege for the society.

"Like Ethel, she is a trailblazer - not only because she sits in the Supreme Court, but also because of the judgements that she gives.

"Ethel had an interest in human rights, and worked hard to benefit women and children in Dunedin, and many of Baroness Hale's more famous judgements and opinions promote human rights and the rights of women.

"It is a privilege for us to be able to hear her speak."

The F. W. Guest Memorial Lecture is in the Moot Court, Level 10 of the Richardson Building at 5.30pm on Wednesday May 5. The Ethel Benjamin Commemorative Address is at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery at 12.20pm on Friday May 7.

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